Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ct, in itspicturesque minglingof military strengthof construction andbeauty of feature, itis entirely typical of its class, and exactly representative of the civillife of which it was the centre. The building covers a space ofabout one hundred and ten by two hundred feet, but the greaterportion, of somewhat less height, is probably later in date thanthe remainder, though the style of the original is strictly preservedthroughout. There are three stages of rugged rock-faced stone-work, of unequal height. The lowest is very plain, as usual, withsimple square doorways, with heavy lintel and pointed bearing-arch,and a few small windows set high in the wall. Such a lower storywas well calculated to withstand a vigorous attack from an enemywho knew not gunpowder. In the second story, the piano nobile,this severity is scarcely mitigated by the few openings in the formof round arches enclosing two pointed and cusped lights separatedby a columnar mullion. These windows are the prototype of most
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Fig. 427. RaveUo. Court of Casa RufPola. 274 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY of the great windows in the public buildings of Tuscany for thenext hundred years. We find substantially the same design in thePalazzo Vecchio and in Or San Michele. It does not vary greatlyin character, as will be observed, from the windows which we haveseen in the thirteenth-century private palaces of Siena, though inthese the opening was oftener of three lights than of two. In theearlier palaces of the Renaissance we may see the same type of win-dow appearing with but slight modification. In the third story the windows are variousin design and posi-tion, but in the mainfagade of the newerportion is a symmet-rical range of broadpointed and cuspedopenings undivided.The wall is finishedwith a strong archedcorbel - table andsquare battlements.A slender tower nomore than eighteenfeet square rises froman angle of the build-ing to the height ofone hundred andseventy feet withoutother feature than aplain round arch ineach f

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